It is coming up to Exam season and I just want to let you know; that if your teacher tells you your work is rubbish; and you're going to fail, then they're shitheads and you go prove them wrong like I did!
Sixth form was defiantly an experience for me. I made some amazing friends in my 1 year of sixth form; but that was about it. It's safe to say by the Easter Holidays I made my mind up to quit. Although I was going to quick and not go into my second year; I wasn't going to not try my sixth exams.
So this "story time" is about how my A Level photography teacher failed me with a U about a month or two before my exam and pretty much said I'll fail the whole course.
If you haven't done an photography or art exam, it works a little bit different to the other exams. You spent 75% of the lesson doing coursework; which I think its roughly 40% of the grade. You then get your exam, which is 10 hours over a week. You could choice how to do the 10 hours, for example, boshing it all out in 2 days or spreading it over the whole week. And this would count for the rest of the grade.
Honestly at the end of year 11 I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was stuck between going to college or go to Sixth form and be with people I know. Being the anxious 16 year old I was; I chose friends. I chose my subjects and was ready to start.
I've never really done photography before this and I can honestly say I didn't know what I was doing (I still don't) but I thought this lesson would be great to learn and practice.
My first camera I got for this lesson was the "Fujifilm Finepix S9800 Digital"
(Thank you Jessops webpage for guessing what camera I was on about)
My grandad bought me this and it was roughly £150 so I was very greatful and wanted to do the best I could in this class to show how thankful I am/was.
I didn't really know how to use the camera, so it was a learning process. I was fully expecting in this class to learn how to use the camera and how to make photos look good basically. I never heard of photoshop. and I'm pretty certain we didn't even have photoshop, so I just used different websites to play around with my pictures.
Throughout the year we would be given certain topics/subjects on what to take photos off and then mount them in our coursework book. I don't have my coursework book anymore to show you, and I deleted 90% of my work after being told how bad my work was, but I was able to save some to show you what I took for the lessons.
I can't remember exactly the subjects/topics but some were like "Black and White" "Nature" "abandoned"
So these were some of the pictures I took and edited 5 years ago. Yeah, some of them are a bit awful, but I was never told how to change or make the pictures better so I assumed my work was ok!
We had two teachers for Photography, one was lovely and never said bad, he would just say "if I was you" or "if it was me I'd do this" Kind of stuff.
The other one. Yeah she didn't like me, At All.
So I would hand my coursework in for my grading around March/April/May time, thinking "yeah I'm not great, but I'm sure it's at least a D"
No, I got my piece of paper with my "predicted" grades, and there it was; a big fat U.
I cried. a lot.
My parents were not very happy, and if anyone knows me, don't piss my mum off! Well when we had a meeting with this "lovely" women. She made it clear my work was utter shit. Mumma did not like that. So after more tears and my mum shouting. I had a month deadline to RE-DO all of my photography coursework, before doing my 10 hour exam work.
I got no help from my teacher on how I could change my pictures, make them better and improve. It was the thanks to my friends in the class on giving me the encouragement to re-do it.
I don't know what or how I did it, but I did complete and re-do all my coursework. I don't even remember what I changed or even done, I kind of wiped that memory. I completed my 10 hour exam and it was the Holidays.
August roll around and I got my exam results. And you know what I got? a C. C GRADE.
MY WORK COULDN'T BE THAT RUBBISH IF THE EXAM BOARD THOUGHT IT WAS GOO ENOUGH TO GIVE ME A C!!!
I was so chuffed with myself, and I never stepped foot back in that building again. I left all my exam and coursework books there because I didn't want anything to do with them anymore.
It was safe to say all of my Sixth Form experience was "you're going to fail, you might as well go to college" (and that's what I did and came out with A,A,B so ha to you lot)
Since this; which was about 5 years ago now, I was very much put off photography. Because I still felt like my work was rubbish.
In the last year I have had my boyfriend and my dad teach me how to take pictures with a Canon EOS 600D and use photoshop. These are a few of the pictures I've taken these last few months;
I have learnt by playing about; asking questions and learning from mistakes, instead of just being told "that's a bad picture, re-do it"
Wildlife photography is one of my favoutires and I am still a beginner in photography. I am making mistakes, and I still get moments where I want to chuck it all in and shout "I'm shit" but I keep proceeding with the support of the two best men in my life.
So, if a teacher tells you that your work is rubbish, prove them wrong.
Because I would LOVE to show her the picture of Ryde Queen (boat picture) and say "IS THIS RUBBISH; NO I THINK NOT"
Keep on going guys; if you think you're bad at something, keep practicing and you'll get there. I learnt that the hard way!
If you're a fan of my photography; I post a lot of them on my Instagram. :)
Until next time guys! x
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